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How $45 can buy you 7500 Ultimate Rewards

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Here’s a hint: Freedom is offering 5x points this quarter.

I bet some of you have already utilized this little trick, but I thought I’d highlight as we are about halfway through the 1st quarter. Chase Freedom will give you 5x points when you use Apple Pay to purchase any good or service. Did you know that you can actually pay your friends with Apple Pay? You’ll get hit with a 3% fee to do so, but you can charge it to your credit credit card if it’s registered to Apple Pay. This is a great way to pay your room-mate for rent, or if a group goes out to dinner to pay your part of the bill. Obviously, if you can hit the $1500 max per quarter with traditional payments and avoid the 3% fee it’s better, but this opens up another avenue to profitably maximize the quarterly bonus.

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Make sure your Apple Pay Cash is turned on.

You can access it via “Settings” —-> “Wallet & Apple Pay.” You’ll see the cards you have registered.

a screenshot of a phone

When you want to pay someone, just select Apple Pay at the bottom of an iMessage, and follow the instructions.

As you can see, you’re given the option to pick one of your accounts. Then, you’ll see the 3% fee added on.

I have 2 Freedoms, which gives me the opportunity to earn 15k this quarter. Combine that with the 15k I earned at Walmart in Q4, 2017 – I’m well on my way to flying like this again. Just 65k on Singapore Airlines.

Swiss Business Class Throne Seat.

Swiss Business Class 777-300ER Los Angeles to Zurich - THRONE SEAT!
Swiss Biz Throne!

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

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Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card


4.8
4.8/5
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based including Hyatt, Southwest, United, IHG, and Marriott.

Welcome Offer

60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months

Annual Fee

$95

Points Earned

Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards

  • 3x on dining
    •  including eligible delivery services for takeout
  • 3x on select streaming services
  • 3x on online grocery purchases
    • (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
  • 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel Portal
  • 2x on all other travel
  • $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Chase Travel
    • The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
  • 10% Anniversary Bonus
    • Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
  • Chase Sapphire Preferred® continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
  • Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
  • Redeem in the Chase Travel center for 1.25 cents per point
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
    • Primary rental car coverage is my favorite

We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.

Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.

Main Cast: 

Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.

Supporting Cast:

Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on. 

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.

If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners

Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.

The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

9 Comments

  • […] has made it super simple to pay your friends money that you owe them. I wrote about how this was an easy way to earn 5x points, but you’d have to pay a 3% fee to do so. I got some questions: will I get hit with a cash […]

  • Beck February 8, 2018

    I’m totally going to do this. Thanks for the tip.

    • Miles February 8, 2018

      Beck – happy to help

  • pigsy February 8, 2018

    Do you know if it will count as cash advance? I’ve tried Amex to do Apple Pay and it counted as cash advance.

    • Miles February 8, 2018

      Pigsy – good question. If you’re worried, I’d call and lower your cash advance rate to $0

      • askmrlee February 8, 2018

        Good luck with that. You can’t do that with Chase.

        • Miles February 8, 2018

          Depends on who you get…still reports of $0, some people say $20 now. Either way you can avoid a large fee this way.

  • Bill S February 8, 2018

    Why not just buy a gift card and save the 3% fee?

    • Miles February 8, 2018

      Bill – could do, but even gift cards assess fees and liquidation cost…this opens up a lot of potentials for direct payment – just an option.

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